Wigan are the best side I've seen so far this season. For a set of predominantly young home grow forwards they are really excellent and won collision after collision in the first half. Their line speed and aggression in defence was also far superior.

We were well out of sorts and key players like whitehead and Diskin looked very tired.

I've watched Tim Roby 3 times now and when a side is dominant in the ruck area and has superior line speed he stops refereeing them. His individual call making is no worse than any other ref - the Farrell steal and the Sidlow knock on/held down were poor calls in my view but most of the 'forward' passes were flat and the high shots for both sides nothing more than 50/50s.

However having established one team as dominant he views each ptb in that light meaning the dominant team are given fractionally longer to get off irrespective of who's won the collision. As the game wears on and both teams fatigue this becomes more evident to the crowd who feel he's refereeing the two teams differently, which he is, but probably to a lesser degree than we perceive in the stand. Similarly with the 10m. It has always been the case (and was when the Bulls were a good side) that fast, aggressive defences get the benefit of any doubt, particularly with inexperienced refs. At times today there were three defenders at marker and he gave Wigan the benefit of the doubt because their line speed was superior and simply guessed they'd made the ground.

Of the games he's reffed he's made zero difference to the result but he does get on your thruppenies.

One good reason the Bulls cop it from the Refs is that the video of the game picks up Bulls supporters on the mic venting their spleen, while some of it can be funny the Refs who hear it at the debrief sessions won't, especially if they get ribbed by their colleagues! I wouldn't be suprised if they have an unofficial comp to see how many times the Bulls fans can be wound up!
If thats the case Roby must be a clear leader from what I've read!

Don't understand why we did not start with Gale even if he was spelled latter in the game. We needed more control at the begining, as it was the game was beyond us after the first 20 minutrs.

Very impressed by Wigan though- strong, fast, well structured and their passing made ours look like schoolboy stuff. But the always spoil themselves in my eyes by extending the "professionalism" into slowing down the ptb.

Still we put in a good defensive effort and in the last few years we would have shipped 50 or 60 after a start like we had yesterday.

In the rubbish I've read whinging about ref's this stands out as extremely intelligent, well thought out & expressed. The point about dominance is actually one I would agree with; psychologically ref's I think do end up giving dominant teams the benefit of the doubt without being aware of it. This is nearly always top teams; great players like Hanley, Lewis, Sculthorpe, Farrell knew this & always got away with more & could get in the ref's face more. WIgan in the late 80s/90s were a classic case, when their star was waning they didn't get as much favour, hence their spoiled inbread hillbillies screaming about the whole RL world being in conspiracy against them. I'm not sure about the second point, I think that is just a better, keener team.

We lost the game up the middle and I think we could have had Andrew Johns at halfback and come away with nothing. We were totally nullified in the collision where Wigan got plenty in the tackle and made it impossible to get a quick PTB. We were finishing our sets in our own half so Wigan ended up starting theirs on the 40m line. When we did get them in their own 20m area we gave away successive penalties.

As Cummins says there Wigan had 10 more sets than us. It's no wonder we lost. Add to that the ludicrous kick offs on the full, throwing the ball in touch etc and we did well to keep the margin down to 30points.

M@islebugs point about Roby is well made. There were definite paralells with the Saints match where they were given far more time to hold down that we were despite there being hardly any difference in what was happening in the ruck. Despite that there were only a handful of dodgy decisions. Not sure about the Wigan head grappling though. Not pretty.

It showed me where we need to strengthen, I think the backrow is lacking a bit of impact. Hopefully the young lads will develop and provide this. Farrell has developed into an average kid into a dominant SL backrower. That's what Olbison, Addy and Bateman need to do. As for Whitehead, I think he needs to work on his defence if he's to keep developing, it's a weakness you can see is exploited by good sides. At prop we have 3 decent frontrowers, so obvious need for another.

It always amuses me when fans complain about the behaviour of opposition players stretching or exceeding the rules, any coach worth their salt should just tell their players to do the same (I accept that all referees would immediately penalise Bradford while letting opposition teams get away with even worse transgressions). Which brings me to my real point, Sam’s observation about grappling particularly & forward aggression generally is something I was concerned about with Cummins. He has undoubtedly far exceeded my expectations of him as a coach, however the nagging doubt remains that he is not nasty enough, nor does he have assistants who were known for being uncompromising, nor is the team filled with enforcers. Wigan, under Maguire & Wane, have brought nastiness to a new high, or playing to the edge of the rules would be more polite. I think Bradford need a bit more steel before they get a reputation for being a bit soft.

I'm not sure what you expect Cummins to do to instil the required "mongrel" into his players? Can you actually coach that? Are you advocating the Tony Fisher coaching approach of "get stuck into 'em or I'll flatten you".

I think you need players with that mongrel in them to begin with. Our pack is a little short of it since Elima left and the backrow is weaker as a result. That said we don't miss his ill discipline. The game has also moved on since when Tigs and his peers like Ray French were playing and you can't get away with reacting violently to aggression.

Really? Well, i'd define a whinge as an unjustified complaint. So let's see
Whilst on some occasions something like that may happen, because refs are only human, not automatons, I don't at all agree that in general that is true. To present it as a general universal truth is simply wrong. But if it did happen, then the fans of the team on the wrong side of it would have a "justifiable complaint", not a "whinge", because their team would be being treated differently from the opposition, when it should be the same for both.


The complaints here have been mostly about Roby, though. And if you are seriously saying that Wigan are coached to grapple around the head and face then I'm sorry, whilst I don't believe it, if it was true, I don't want my team ever using that as a tactic. But if Wigan were using this tactic (coached or not) and not getting penalised for it, then to complain about the referee failing to deal with it would be a "justifiable complaint", not a "whinge".


As someone who has watched, er, several years of rugby league, I must admit I laughed out loud at that one. "A new high"? You're kidding, right? I could name you a dozen sides off the top of my head that would have had the current Wigan team for breakfast, and had a bloody good laugh at the suggestion that they had taken nastiness to a new level. As for a "team of enforcers" - Franny Cummins inherited what he inherited, and many of them are just young lads. He hasn't "filled the team" with anything.


More steel is always welcome but I don't see how you could argue we are getting a reputation for "being a bit soft". Prior to kick off our "soft" team was 3rd in the table, and yes I'd have loved us to win but rather than "soft" I'm thinking that bearing in mind where we were a few short months ago it is a bloody miracle that we are at the level we are. My feeling is that the only reputation we're getting at the moment is that of a team which is surprisingly good, and playing surprisingly attractive and expansive rugby, and taking into account our circumstances is admired by practically everyone.

Anyway, we are a work-in-progress, and at a very early stage at that, and we may not progress much in the next year or two simply due to lack of funds, but I actually am back to loving going to the games, because I love the way we try to play, and I appreciate the effort and the fantastic team spirit. What I would say is that when we and Saints ruled the roost between us for all those years, the rugby was fantastic, but neither we nor they ever had a "team of enforcers" and so I don't think that it is a necessity.

Link to this report..?

Interview with BBC Radio Leeds.

Aren't grapple tackles illegal?

So I was led to believe.

I was not suggesting Wigan are a dominant side (yet), nor did I intend to imply that it is a team simply being dominant in an individual game. There have been 3 dominant teams in my time watching RL – those who have sustained a superiority over all others for a number of years – Wigan, Bradford & Saints. Even though Leeds have obviously dominated recent GFs they haven’t dominated throughout the season. Although Sinfield does rightly use his regal status to respectfully challenge officials to his full abilities.
I wouldn’t want to coach my players to strangle others nor dive at their knees while held to an extent that is likely to cause them permanent injury. But I wouldn’t let a team physically overwhelm mine. I remember Widnes physically dominating Brian Smith’s Hull side in some final around 1990 (Premiership?) – he changed the team attitude & make up in the off-season to ensure it didn’t happen again. It is possible to change the mental approach & attitude of your collective team, though individual players can be beyond even the likes of Smith.
Wigan inbred hillbillies were all predicting their young & relatively lightweight pack would get outmuscled before the start of the season. Wane has obviously coached an aggressive mentality; there is the thug like McIlorum to go with the carefully calculated high shots of O’brotherinlaw. Allied with a high intensity, in your face defence, he has made the best of his charges with a number of average SL standard players in his squad. I am not sure that type of aggression comes naturally to Cummins, nor his assistants. I didn’t say you are soft, but you that you might get a reputation, time will tell.
Bradford didn’t have a team of enforcers? Vaikona, Les, Vagana, Lowes, McDermott, Peacock, Anderson, Fielden, Naylor all tried to physically & mentally dominate their opponents. I can’t think of many top teams who had a dominant forward pack to give their backs the freedom to run riot. Ironically Bradford were often accused of having no Plan B, when their steamrolling style of play wasn’t successful.

I thought Wigan played played very well indeed and showed why they are top of the league. They also played the referee far better than we did. I'll never understand why, when he was allowing Wigan to lie on and mess around, our players seemed determined to allow Wigan a clean ruck as they did in the first half. Clearly FC straightened that out at half time and we used the same tactics, resulting in the game being much closer, though it has to be said Wigan had the game in the pocket after 40 minutes so maybe dropped off the intensity a little.

I have to say if didn't make for a very good game though, with neither side getting clean ball. Roby really is an awful referee and nowhere near ready for SL. The number of forward passes, high tackles and general laying on and messing around was atrocious and it came from both sides and it will only increase if it isn't stamped on by the official and Roby either didn't spot it or hadn't the confidence to give it it. Our discipline did drop a bit at the the end unfortunately, though I guess this was as much to do with tiredness after all the tackling we'd done, rather than anything else.

Wigan are a class above though and it's hard to see beyond them being favourites for the title at the end of the season.

I think it must be very difficult for a referee (especially one as inexperienced as Roby) to find a balance between blowing up at every PTB and letting things slide to ensure a bit of flow in the game.

It's made particularly hard when teams try every trick in the book to slow down the PTB as much as is possible. Some take it to extremes but all teams will push it as far as they're allowed and some refs allow more than others.

What frustrates me is the inconsistency from one week to the next on how long is allowed at each tackle. When an attacker dominates the collision the tacklers must get off quicker yet last week we saw extra defenders come in to deliberately slow things by hanging onto arms and legs, not rolling away or deliberately lying in the way of the man playing the ball to further slow things down. It's so obvious what's going on.

I don't want to see a game of dummy half scooting when everyone has to immediately roll away but I would like to see the PTB cleaned up a bit and the wrestlemania done away with. It makes for an awful spectacle.